نام و ارتاح، يأتيك النجاح

شكلى اليومين دوله مخى مش عايز يرتاح إلًا لَمًا يجيب كل ما هو شبه مفيد فى حاجات ممكن بضحكنى فى معظم الأحيان و منهم مقولة ماما الشهيرة "نام و ارتاح، يأتيك النجاح ".بلهجة السخرية المعروفة.

فى نفس اللحظة، أشهر مقولة لبابا "أهم حاجة قبل الأمتحان إنكِ تكونى نايمة كويس. ممكن تكونى مذاكرة المنهج كله و نازلة فيه دح بس عشان مانامتيش كويس حتفقدى تركيزكِ و تحلى أسهل الأسئلة غلط و بعد كده ترمى اللوم على غبائك اللى من أولها أوهمك إن لو سهرتى شوية همًا دول الكلمتين اللى حيكسبك درجات."

 و فى نهاية المطاف وصلت لحل المعضلة بخلط المحضرتان اللى هى.... تارا: "نام و ارتاح قبل الامتحان، حتعرف تركز و يأتيك النجاح"

 صقفة بئة يا جدعان!

دربكة

قيل و قال و قولنا و قلبوها دربكة

نميمة و ضغينة و أى لخبطة

عايزين شهادة يا سادة فى قضية الست اللتاتة

كدبة فوق كدبة و شوية نفخة كدًابة

           حواديت يألفها ناس فاضية و مجانين

           ناس عندها فراغ و براحة الغير قلقنين

           مايفرحوش لفرحك و يتمنوا إن ياكلك تنين

           أصل الأصيل أصيل و لو حتى بهدلتوه السنين

           لو حياتك رياح يخلوها زعابيب

           لو نفسك تعيش يودوك سجن أبو غريب

           أنا عارفة نفسك تديلهم درس تأديب

           لكن فات الأوان عليهم دوله محتاجين يقربوا من المجيب

         

           وأهو كله دربكة

When She Was Gone

  All I remember, I was a punctual student. After joining college I gave it another brain storm: Was I a "punctual student" or a "passive student"?
  I think it differs. It carries huge bulky differences within its folds. Being punctual doesn't mean to be as silent as I used to. Being punctual doesn't mean fearing teachers as I felt. Being punctual doesn't mean isolating as I did. I was passive. I was a student, but invisible one. She has her name on the class list, highest grades in her report, but where is she? Her name when it was called out, she had to raise her hand to ensure that this face she had, belonged to that name. She thought it was a part of punctuality, but the adult her found out that it was simply and obviously passivity.

   Days passed and she was lost. She joined a college in a blur. Blurry future in a country whose existence became blurry as well. She didn't know where her dignity and future would be secured. She didn't know what job would polish her prestige. She didn't know what would fulfill her pride. She didn't know where her interests can soar. All what she believed in is, letting her fate drive her to the mysterious destiny.

  Till one day, she.... I mean, I.... had a vision. Like a psychic. A collapsing world in a minute. A past, present and future, interlacing at a point. School buses on the sides of my college's road. Teachers crossing the street, dressed in black. Students from different colleges heading to the mosque. It was the funeral of my school's principle Mrs/ Ameena El-Deeb. The first thought hit me "Why are tears running down on my cheeks? I didn't interact with her. I had a thought back then 'who visits the principle frequently, is a bad kid.' I know it's wrong, cause later I realized honored students do so too. So, am I crying over her death? Or.... Am I crying, actually we may say: tearing, over that student she had once in her school yard, that girl who was under her supervision, that girl whose graduation she attended and handed her prizes, cause she made it to med-school,  the girl who's the very same person attending college, but this time, she's under the literal word which contradicts punctuality?

   Then, the whole picture enlightened in front of me. When I thought of myself as the one who died and she was the one who survived, watching more generations released to build a new world. A Shakespeare moment, right? Actually, what enlightened wasn't the dark imagination I own, but the more important thought which conquered my strength to survive through that day. When I die, who would attend my funeral?

   If my spirit will spread its goodbyes nowadays, I guess barely my friends would know of it, cause I am usually out of sight. My parents will absorb the shock for my little sister, to keep her moving on. Other than my family, who will attend my funeral?

  In a moment, I was stuck among null invisible thoughts in my head. Out of the blue, one word hit me "Teacher." Teachers are really blessed to have us all. I guess, specially, in this era. We communicate quicker, the news spread in a blink of an eye. Of course, this one won't be a cheerful one, but anyway she/he has many to pray for her/him after she/he's gone. I remembered that professor who was mentioned by a four- academic-year-older student and how sad all classes felt for him and how many attended his funeral. The blesses weren't only for him, the students even supported his son who was in his final years of high school.

  When she was gone, I felt the obligation to be a teacher. When she was gone, I felt it's important to be a mother, cause heaven will be yours; but it's more important to teach many: Your kids, their friends, your colleagues and your neighbors too. When she was gone, I realized the name "teacher" equalizes a Queen's honor. When she was gone, I knew my end is more important than my living. When she was gone, I didn't bury the old me along; I thought I have to improve it, so when I give a visit, I'd be welcomed. And this is what happened when she was gone.

Dark Utopia

  I want a ticket to Utopia. I am not waiting for winning it from a lottery. I am not adding it to my bucket list, either. My Utopia doesn't exist in Hawaii. It doesn't exist  in those beautiful islands in the middle of the ocean. It exists in a dark place. Lonely. Its bottom belongs to mother Earth, its top is a whole other planet. I don't want my eyes to roll on the ground to have a look on grass, trees and sand -with all due love to that view. But, I want my eyes to fly. I want it to sway in space, against gravity. I want my soul to drift away with that thin thread magnetized to me, and I keep playing with it like a marionette.

  My Utopia wouldn't be sunny greenish land. It's dark. It's on the top of a mountain, surrounded by dark clouds. I'd stand on the peak. I'd scream, not like a scared girl, but like an angry riot. I'd smile to myself. I'd tear out of happiness I'd feel, because of that freedom I'd touch through the blowing wind. My tears would freeze. My nose would produce warmth all over my face as it gets reddish. I'd laugh out of the madness of this mixture of feelings. I'd shout out all the sorrowful memories. No more whispers. I'd sit and let my eyes jump off this cliff and sink in the beauty of the scene. The green landscape, the sparkling water, the neighboring icy caps of the high mountains, the rocky floor beneath me and the distant sandy spots. Then I'd lift my eyes up high to see how close I am to the sky. The heavy clouds, the sun which keeps visiting from a minute to another and the moon which is too shy to shine in the morning and hard to be its accompany in the presence of these blocking clouds.

  Actually, I don't think my urge to abuse this moment of sweet loneliness would let me sit for long. I would stand and let the wind dive into my hair, tickle my frozen lashes, and try hopelessly to dig into my thick clothes. The voices would sing lullabies to me. Some of them would reply to my worries. Some of them would laugh along with me. Some of them would bring funny moments I had on that planet Earth one day. Some of them would ring the bells on my heart and crave into it the names of people missed, to give them a visit as soon as I'm off this Utopia. Some of them will wash my brain and alert it that life can't be about Utopia. Life can't be comforting. If life would be pure, with no worries, no pain, no madness, so what would heaven be like?

  My dark Utopia isn't sad. It isn't pathetic. It isn't an emo land. My dark Utopia is the thoughts you and I are buried in. If we envisioned them as a place, it would be entertaining. If we kept envisioning it as a knife stuck in our backs, the pain will never end; you'd be like a soul belongs to a dead body which couldn't see the light to settle in its home.

  Utopia doesn't have to be magical. It can be your drawings, your piece of writing or your cover for your favorite song. Utopia can be the invisible angel on your shoulder. It can be anywhere. You create it, you find it.

Free Time

  Free time, is what I suffer from. After you're gone, with a phantom left before me, I've nothing to do, but writing letters to you. None of them are sent. All of them are in my drawers. Every day I meet you, I head back to my room, and read all the letters. I write letters sent to you and replied to me.....by you which, actually, you've never written. I read them in your tune, I understand them the way you'd get it, and write the replying letters in the way you would write it, in the handwriting you'd create.

  I am not desperate. I am not lonely. It is just the way I replaced you with letters and the way you replaced me with empty air, makes me a winner. A heartless winner. My dignity doesn't hold me from knocking on your door. My heart doesn't advise me to stop beating when you're around. It's simply my brain convinced the rest of my existence that hating you is easier than accepting you as a companion in my life.

  Wait, I haven't told you about the content of the letters? They are lyrics. That's what I'd on mind. Every song is about what you'd suffer from by now. Every word is about what I'd say to support. All I had on mind was... lyrics. The ink I had to write these words on these poor papers which has no fingerprints but mine, is the music. Music varied from being crazy, with none resting beats to a piece of soothing music. Some of the words will make you laugh, some of them will make you go insane, some of them will make you quit trying to have revenge from life which you're about to hate.

  So, tell me what do you do in your free time, but escaping the thought of me? I mean, when do you have a time free of me?

Time

  A clock which never stops ticking, like this planet Earth which never stops spinning. A clock which never quits passing by the very same numbers in different nights and days, like history which goes repeating itself but in various centuries. A clock which trespasses your dreams and that's where you can give it a license to enter through the gates into your life as a wallflower company or the lifelong buddy.

  I believe time is a teacher. The teacher whom if you feared, you could never learn from him, and he would be that machine which keeps chopping your grades. A walking nightmare. But, if you respected him and in a friendly way, shared with him your opinions & thoughts, he would give you all what he had willingly, grades and unlimited culture. A map to Utopia.

  So, when you look at the clock, don't determine the numbers. Focus on the time. Nonsense, right? I honestly see it like that: Time is a plain chart, if I kept measuring its height and width, and kept changing my ideas just to fit that size (which will lead to forgetting the originality and the main encouragement of this idea that drove me to it in the first place) instead of, simply, start painting, but in suitable measurements (like minimizing it, to save space and exert all this effort to create new ideas to fill up this space. In my opinion, it's far better than cancelling the whole idea; for an artist, it's frustrating, believe me). Results? I'd be done with my aim effortlessly and gladly.

  It's 11:30 AM now, but who cares about the numbers?! I care that it's morning. I have many things to do, but why would I tell myself "I have no time and I am doomed," while I can simply tell myself, "I can do what I want to do, just faster than I usually do it"? It doesn't mean, I will do it carelessly or I'd exhaust myself (as I have to convince myself that what I am committing is according to my interest and free will), but means I will advance my abilities. Don't let the "nothing" be your monster. Let nature and its acquirement be your loving guardians.

The Occult

  That love. That admiration. That feeling which makes you feel little and the other is the biggest. You feel insecure and that person is your guardian. That feeling when you stand and stare at nothing waiting for that voice from behind, even by the meanest words. That endless time you spend waiting, and nothing really happens. 

  Mirror can't say the reason. TV shows can never narrate the story. The words are unable to act the racing heart and the breathless slow moves, stepping away. That moment when you feel they are the clouds, out of your reach. On the other hand, you feel you're powerful and you, actually, work hard to get closer, but you're like gravity, even if you reached the extremes of effortful trials, distance between you can never lessen. The sky and ground can never collapse. Even if it happened, it can never reach the core of Earth where gravity's throne is.

  It's nature's decision to put your story among the impossibilities. It's fate's selective choice to add your fantasy to its incomprehensible encyclopedia.  

The Usual

We scantily read what we wrote

We hardly buy what we sold

We barely wear what we sew

We scarcely hang what we drew

We rarely eat what we cooked

We poorly have whom we loved

I Am This

I don't love, I don't live

I don't receive, I don't give

I don't hate, I don't fit

I don't watch, I don't dig

I am not sad, I am not happy

I am not lost, I am not stationary

I am not changeable, I am not brainy

I am not stupid, I am not wily

I am not young, I am not old

I am not mysterious, I am not cold

I am not open, I am not fold

I am not friendly, I am not sold

I am unknown, I am not identified

I am cool, I am not intensified

I am ignorant, I am not blind

I am this and what's on the opposite side

Awad

   

   He was running upstairs, his breath was almost lost, and his vision was vibrating. Where was Awad heading to? What would he do? These weren't his worries alone, they were his and his fellows'. Those who were running in their uniforms, wondering "Is this the reason why I run? When I wore it, the family were happy for me. They called me "soldier". The kids were delighted to see me, ran to me and hugged me. Am I running because of this piece of cloth? Does it have another term in the city than my village?!"

   They were all hurrying upstairs, wondering how they hadn't tripped yet, out of their terror, out of the null knowledge about "the next step". Some of them had stupid smile on the face, their brain went "Oh, just like that hero in the movie."
 Some of them thought: "Allah, I'm gonna die! Please, forgive me for the sins, I've done intentionally and unintentionally. Please, protect my family. Please, let the media count me from the martyrs and pay money for my family & protect them."
Some of them thought: "Definitely, we're going upstairs to get to the roof and be protected from the angry crowd."

"Faster, faster, you, idiots! We may die. Go upstairs. Faster!" shouted the commander.
"Allah, save me. Allah, save me," whispered The officer, Awad, to himself.
His educated fellow, while running breathlessly, "Sir, I think we shouldn't--"
"Shouldn't? Do you know more than I do?! Go upstairs, bastard. Go, go, go!" interrupted the commander.

   They hurled up the endless stairs. They didn't know what they were doing. They didn't know how they got there. They didn't know what the benefit of being alive,  what the price of their souls, what even their rights were. They just knew the importance of staying alive, not because they loved life, but they despised dropping off responsibilities, cause they, heartily, knew that they were the actual air by which their family breathe.

   In no time, their long blurry journey ended. They made it to the roof. They looked at each other, avoiding eye-contact with the commander. Some of them looked at the floor. Some of them were concerned with the freezing temperature, rubbing their arms and looking to the sky.  Some of them tried to empty their guns secretly, to find an excuse if the commander asked them to shoot.

"You!" pointed the commander in disgust. "And the we-shouldn't dude next to you, get set. Here, now."
Awad and his fellow, looked at each other. Awad and his fellow were shaking, but each for a different reason. The former was terrified, he feared God, he didn't want to have a sinful end; specially, he knew that if he shot, he would be shot back. The latter was angry, and his tamed shouts couldn't have escaped other than comforting look at the poor Awad.
"You, bitches! You will stare at each other for long? I said move!" roared the commander, if fools could really roar.
Awad and the fellow got set, their guns half out of the borders, pointing at pavements and the street. That was what they could see, over the commander's shouts "Shoot," they couldn't see people. They could see only pavements and the colored ground.
Awad shot with inner scream "Forgive me, God. Forgive me if this is wrong."
But his fellow didn't shoot. The commander shouted in his ears "Hey, lady. Wanna lessons at how to shoot with a gun?!"
The fellow looked at his commander "I can't point out any, sir."
"What?" The commander pressed on his teeth.
"I can't see the target, sir."
The commander slammed his head to the ground, "Come again. I didn't hear you well."
"None in the street, sir."
The commander held the officer, his leg couldn't feel the floor and his upper body was out, hanging in the air by the building's edge.
"And all of those. All these trouble makers, aren't enough for your vision to point and shoot?"
"They are bunch of people talking, sir." The fellow screamed back.
The commander threw him to the floor, nearly swept half the area. He pulled Awad from his back "You, two chickens. Get down there, and chat with the crowd."
Awad ran to the commander fell to his knees "Please, don't fire me."
"You, pathetic animal, I said go downstairs to the other commander. You're not a worker to get fired. You're a slave. Go!"
The young policeman, Tarek, "I'll get them downstairs, sir."
The commander rolled his eyes, and pointed at others to finish the mission.

Tarek petted on Awad's arched back "Don't worry, it's okay. Bosses can be asses sometimes." He stopped till Awad's fellow was next to him on the same step, he put his arm round his shoulders "And you, don't be stubborn with such types of idiots. Be like my older brother, act that you're dying.  I can't promise you that such tricks would work, but sometimes they buy it."
None of them answered. They ran downstairs and before they were out to the street, Tarek whispered "Run to the car, without saying a word, or hitting anybody."
Awad with tearing eyes: "Sir, please, I don't want to kill. I don't want to die either."
Tarek smiled kindly: "That's why we're running to the car and not upstairs."

Behind the building's door, Tarek counted down and they started to run on mark. The moment the door went open, they started to run. It felt like their life went on slow motion. The gunfire gave birth to thousands of screams in a killing silent night. Awad checked his gun that it wasn't his which fired, and the people in the street had an eye on him. They thought he shot. They ran toward him, he tried to escape. His fellow ran to him and tried to scream "He didn't shoot." And he couldn't say anything more than that, he couldn't say the real shooters were upstairs. They kept being hit. Hurtfully. They wanted to scream "Will we live or you gonna stop when we're certainly dead?" Awad felt pain and he didn't know if it was a broken bone or a deformed muscle. He wondered where the kind policeman Tarek was. Why didn't he rescue him?
On the other hand, his fellow's thoughts rolled in regret "Why didn't I obey the command? Cause, I've learnt once that I've to shoot who has the gun, and I can't shoot who apparently peaceful? But, that was the order. I can never be blamed for following my leader's order. Now, I am being beaten for what? For saving those people from the bullets out of my gun? And what's Awad's sin? If this man died, it would be me the only reason."

They opened their eyes and their bodies were paralyzed, unable to make any slight move. Awad moved his eyes to check who's nearby, cause he could hear the blowing sighs. It was Tarek whose eyes were fully filled with tears, and his hands were scratching his folded arms. Awad didn't know how he could move, but, surprisingly, he just stood up, not still, but, at least, he was on his feet which he thought he lost.
"Are you okay, sir?" Awad cried.
Tarek didn't look at him. He didn't answer either. He just looked at the fellow's body. The fellow, who had open eyes, not because he had woke up, but because he was dead.
"Do you want me to get you anything, sir?" asked Awad with caring voice.
"Don't you get it? He's dead, man. Dead." Tarek answered.
"Do you want me to call backup, sir?" Awad's voice became stiff.
"I killed the man! I killed him, idiot!" Tarek screamed, "but I swear I didn't mean it, I fired my gun to the sky and saw a man walking toward me with a hammer. I didn't know what I was doing. I feared him. And I shot at him, but it was this poor officer instead; as he stood defending the man." Tarek collapsed, crying over the fellow's body and kissing his hands whispering "forgive me, please!"

   Awad stared at the scene in disbelief. His brain spun round and round. He punched Tarek. Yes. He did. And, and he couldn't stop. He kept boxing Tarek's crying face till it bled; but this didn't stop him. By time, Tarek had no loud cries, had no sensed breath, his body weighted down heavily. Awad didn't feel that. He just stood up, took his uniform off. He starred at the bodies laying there, next to each other. Each one is killed by a different murderer. They had the same profession. One of them never had the opportunity to think, he never knew what the word 'education' meant, his only taught lesson was: "Never argue, just obey. Never ask why, just do." The other knew education till certain point, but at least he appreciated every word; he knew it wasn't a reason to show that he was better than the illiterate colleagues, but  he knew it was for him to get easier way to straight path leading to heaven. The last took the whole process and he had never given himself the chance to realize why or how, he just lived, cause that was how it supposed to go. What made a difference between the two bodies & Awad, wasn't education only, it was the family they left. One is financially secured, the other is not. One is securely protected and honored, the other is not, and Awad's brain left his family in a mess. They didn't know whether he was alive or dead.

   Only God knows where Awad's brain left him. Oh, there he's. By the river, washing his uniform and wondering "when did it start? Why? How? I killed him. He killed him. He didn't kill them. He shouted. He refused. Who started it? When? Where? How? Dead? Why? For whom?"
The naked Awad by the river asked me to ask you: Did he kill the man in the street? Did the man in the street kill the fellow? Did the man with the hammer killed Tarek? Did the commander......the commander do all of this?

My R-evolution

I was bleeding happily,

I was hurting proudly

I was selling hope for free,

I was chanting cheerful  glee

I was declining to fly overseas,

I was waiting for my dream to be seized

I was buying pessimism to throw it in the wild

Far away from my country's spring rise

I was a change in my small world

I was an inspiration in my poor home

I was a flooding wave of thoughts

Watering people's sterile talks

I was the hero I'd dreamed of as a kid

When I got older, I thought it was fictional a bit

Now, they are offering honor on my grave

While the family living over my tomb, are left to crave

I died for those to live

Not for you to sniff

I died without asking for a company

So why do I have roommates increasingly?

Oh, I died leaving you to the hopelessness

Oh, I died leaving myself to the bitterness

In a blur, I loved my country's revolution

And all of a sudden I underestimated my own evolution

If I Could

If I could make my dreams come true

If I'd the guts to reach the shore

If I could answer the troops' wonders

If I could love my thoughts' spoilers

If I could unite the nations inside of me

If I could know where my capital can be

If I could cancel my history

If I could accept my choices' jeopardy

If I could rearrange my priorities

If I could know my authorities

If I could talk to the one in the mirror

If I could weep, out of my true terror

If I could stop being a clown

If I could show I am down

If I could liberate the sigh

If I could capture the lie

If I could be alive

If I could be fine